King: Regional storm-surge protection is a critical state, U.S. concern

Bill King says there's no need to wait while strategies are studied to death; we can start mitigation and conservation efforts right now.

Published 3:04 pm, Saturday, September 20, 2014

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King: Regional storm-surge protection is a critical state, U.S. concern

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Whenever I write about the need to develop a plan to suppress the storm surge from a major hurricane in our region, I always get a number of emails from people complaining that the cost of such a project is not justified to protect the property of those who have improvidently built in a vulnerable area.

They have a point. There is no question that people and businesses in the storm-surge areas, which cover a much larger part of the region than most think, will realize far greater benefits from such a project than those whose homes and businesses are located outside it. So it would only be fair that those living or doing business in those areas pay more toward the cost of the project. And given that building some protection will probably result in lower flood insurance premiums in those areas, there will be some trade-off.

So once we finally get around to deciding what can be done to mitigate a storm surge, we need to come up with a financing mechanism that takes into account that some will benefit more than others.

What we need to set aside first, however, is the idea that a storm-surge suppression system would be built to protect some rich people's beach houses. That's a gross misconception and overlooks the real risks from a massive storm surge.

First, there is a real chance that the final design will not even protect most beach houses. An element in several of the plans that have surfaced so far would be to raise the elevation of Texas 87 on the Bolivar Peninsula and FM 3005 on the west end of Galveston because that is where the land is the highest and, therefore, easiest and cheapest to raise.

Another factor is that there appear to be nearly insurmountable environmental and engineering issues with a dike system that would run along the beach itself, as some have proposed. If a dike along Texas 87 and FM 3005 were to become part of the plan, none of the homes seaward of those elevated roadways would receive any protection at all.

More important, if we ever have a storm that completely inundates the storm surge area, more than just a few beach houses would be at risk.

The storm surge zone encompasses virtually all of Galveston and Chambers counties, about the southern two-thirds of Brazoria County and nearly a quarter of Harris County. About 800,000 people live in this area. There are hundreds of hospitals, nursing homes, schools, water and sewer systems and electrical substations, just to name a few critical structures. Hundreds of thousands of residents in the region work for employers located within the surge zone.

And then there are the petrochemical complexes along the Houston Ship Channel, Bayport, Texas City, Beaumont-Port Arthur and Freeport. Flooding of these facilities would send out economic shock waves across the nation, not to mention the potential environmental catastrophe.

There are hundreds of toxic waste sites in the surge zone, including a dozen or so federally designated Superfund sites. If floodwaters were to wash over these sites, the environmental damage is inestimable.

So the reality is that while some in the surge zone would benefit more directly than those living farther inland, everyone in this region - and, for that matter, the state - has a stake in trying to mitigate this danger. In fact, because of the critical nature of our petrochemical industry, the entire country does, as well.

Even with such urgent concerns, we are in the very nascent stages of developing a storm surge protection plan.

Just after Hurricane Ike, an interlocal government corporation was formed by Harris, Galveston, Brazoria, Chambers and Jefferson counties to seek funding for a study of the alternatives. The state finally stepped forward last year with nearly $4 million for a studyand the counties selected Dannenbaum Engineering to head it.

Chris Solis, who is project manager for Dannenbaum and was formerly in charge of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in this region, told me they will not have the final results and recommendations until early 2017. While that may seem excruciatingly slow to some, Solis points out that developing a storm-surge protection system is an enormously complex effort. There are hundreds of options and thousands of potential collateral effects, including those on the environment, that must be examined.

So while this appears to be an issue that the 2017 Legislature will have to tackle, there are some things that we can do now while we are waiting on the results.

For example, we know that wetlands can act as storage areas for storm waters, keeping them from inundating areas where they can do damage. We need to protect or remediate existing wetlands.

We also know that oyster reefs act as speed bumps to slow down storm surge. At one time, a vast oyster bar stretched from Smith Point in Chambers County to Eagle Point in Galveston County and provided substantial protection for the upper bay. There are historical accounts in the late 1880s that the oyster bar made this area so shallow that ranchers were able to drive cattle across the bay there. Why not develop another reef now?

There is no reason we cannot start working on those kinds of projects immediately. And there's no reason the Texas Legislature should not provide the funding to do so.

Whatever decision we ultimately reach on what surge-protection strategies are best, the solutions will profoundly affect generations of future Gulf Coast residents just as the decision to build the Galveston Seawall has had a profound effect on generations of Galvestonians. We must get this right. If that takes another three years, so be it.

But we also cannot allow the issue to be studied to death. Sooner or later we are going to get the big storm that rips its way up the east side of Galveston Bay and throws its full fury at our region. The only question is: Will we be ready?

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King's column will be on hiatus while the columnist takes a sabbatical. Email King at weking@weking.net.